This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the authors’ imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Text copyright © 2021 by Robert Kimmel Smith
Cover art copyright © 2021 by Mike Heath.
Cover images used under license from Shutterstock.com.
Map art copyright © 2021 by Sarah Hokanson
The War with Grandpa excerpt text © 1984 by Robert Kimmel Smith. Cover art © 2020 by Marro WWG LLC. All rights reserved.
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Delacorte Press, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.
Delacorte Press is a registered trademark and the colophon is a trademark of Penguin Random House LLC.
Visit us on the Web! rhcbooks.com
Educators and librarians, for a variety of teaching tools, visit us at RHTeachersLibrarians.com
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Smith, Robert Kimmel, author. | Ellis, Ann Dee, author.
Title: The war with Grandma / Robert Kimmel Smith and Ann Dee Ellis.
Description: First edition. | New York : Delacorte Press, [2021] | Audience: Ages 8–12. | Audience: Grades 4–6. | Summary: When Meg finds out Grandma Sally is going to be her partner for the Centennial Strawberry Day contest, she thinks her chances at winning are gone and declares war on her grandmother.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020043219 | ISBN 9780593127469 (hardcover) | ISBN 978-0-593-31023-6 (library binding) | ISBN 978-0-593-12747-6 (ebook)
Subjects: CYAC: Grandmothers—Fiction. | Family life—Fiction. | Contests—Fiction.
Classification: LCC PZ7.S65762 Wap 2021 | DDC [Fic]—dc23
Ebook ISBN 9780593127476
Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.
Penguin Random House LLC supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin Random House to publish books for every reader.
ep_prh_5.7.0_c0_r0
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Map
Chapter 1: Meg Stokes’s True Real Exposé
Chapter 2: How It All Started
Chapter 3: The Long Walk Home
Chapter 4: Roger Rabbit
Chapter 5: Grandma Sally
Chapter 6: Shipshape
Chapter 7: My Old Nemesis
Chapter 8: The Wait
Chapter 9: Unexpected News
Chapter 10: A Deadly Arrival
Chapter 11: Please Help Me
Chapter 12: Two Histories
Chapter 13: Oh Puffo
Chapter 14: Unforgettable
Chapter 15: Early-Morning Drills
Chapter 16: A Little Help from My Friend
Chapter 17: The Smell of Fear
Chapter 18: My Grandma, the Gazelle
Chapter 19: Our Speech
Chapter 20: Hot Air
Chapter 21: War Is Declared!
Chapter 22: Second in Command
Chapter 23: Only a Dope Will Mope
Chapter 24: Night Attack
Chapter 25: Strategy and Supplies
Chapter 26: Strawberry Fields Forever
Chapter 27: Good Luck
Chapter 28: Little Women
Chapter 29: A Dirty Trick
Chapter 30: Grandma Strikes Again
Chapter 31: Strawberry Fields for Never
Chapter 32: The Bitter Results
Chapter 33: Second Is the First Loser
Chapter 34: Reboot
Chapter 35: Taffy Tussle
Chapter 36: The Unplanned Attack
Chapter 37: Enemy Territory
Chapter 38: Sea Witch
Chapter 39: Grandma Sally Gets Serious
Chapter 40: Deep-Dish Trouble
Chapter 41: Betrayal
Chapter 42: Strawberry Fight
Chapter 43: Grilled Spam Strawberry Pizza
Chapter 44: Dis-included
Chapter 45: A Victory
Chapter 46: The Beginning
Chapter 47: Broken Dreams
Chapter 48: Last Ditch
Chapter 49: White Flag
Chapter 50: To Grandpa Jack
Chapter 51: The Final Challenge
Chapter 52: Be Still, My Heart
Chapter 53: Freedom!
Chapter 54: Summer Sweetness
Chapter 55: For My Readers
Acknowledgments
Excerpt from The War with Grandpa
About the Authors
To my sweet Sammy, who keeps me on track and is always up for an adventure. And to my mom. I miss you every day.
1
Meg Stokes’s True Real Exposé
To Whom It May Concern:
URGENT NEWS!!!!!!!!
My grandma is ruining my life and I am so mad I can hardly breathe.
I am going to type everything that happens to me from here on out because I NEED THIS TO BE A MATTER OF PUBLIC RECORD!
This written document will not be a book or a story or an essay. It will be more like an exposé, which according to my teacher, Mr. Bailey, means a piece of writing that gets to the underbelly of things and reveals scandalous truths. So be prepared for scandal. And LOTS of it.
If you ask my dad, it all started many, many, many years ago, before I was even born. When he was in fifth grade (which is the same grade I just finished, so it really was forever ago), he wrote a true and real story about how his Grandpa Jack, my Great-Grandpa Jack, moved in and stole his room. His bedroom. So then my dad declared war on Great-Grandpa Jack, and it got ugly.
Really ugly.
Like U-G-L-Y ugly.
Everyone knows a room-stealing grandpa is no joke.
The fighting got so bad, my dad wrote about it for a school assignment, and then he made it into a book. The War with Grandpa was a pretty good true and real story. A bunch of people read it, even Great-Grandpa Jack, who said, “Peter, this is the best present ever.” I don’t think adults understand presents.
Dad’s war was the most epic war in the history of grandkids and grandparents.
Until now.
Until today.
Until my war.
This exposé is about me and my sworn enemy, my archnemesis. Some call her Sally. My dad calls her Mom. My sister, Hattie, calls her Gram. The old me called her Grandma. Now I call her a menace. And I’m going to tell you all about her and how we’re on opposing sides of this conflict. I won’t leave out a single detail until there is a decisive victory by yours truly.
Things have gotten so bad that right now I am using my dad’s computer.
Dad just walked in and said, “Meg, you’re being ridiculous. Are
you really that mad at Grandma?”
I’m not answering him. Because the answer is obviously yes.
I’m typing every word he says instead as a record of what happened so that all the kids in the world will remember the even more terrible War with Grandma and learn how to prepare for battle. Don’t let the comfortable shoes, triangle hair, and big glasses fool you, my friends!
Dad walks over to the desk and starts distracting me again.
“What are you doing?”
“I am typing every word you say.”
“Why?”
“Because I feel it’s necessary.”
He sits on the rocking chair he keeps in here, which is very old, like him, and looks like it’s going to fall apart, like him, but it’s his favorite chair. Then he clears his throat. “I’m sorry about what happened today, but I don’t think it was as bad as you think it was.”
That is false. It’s actually worse than he thinks I think it was. I’m sure of it.
“You have to ease up,” he says, looking me in the eye, so I look him in the eye and type at the same time. I will not be intimidated.
“I’m never going to ease up, Dad.”
“Meg, this has gone too far.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“I mean, can you give your grandmother a break?”
“No.”
“Or at least give me a break?”
“No.”
“Megan, please, stop typing.”
“I’m sorry, Dad, I can’t stop typing, but I can tell you that my feelings have surpassed anger. I am currently furious. Vehement. Incensed!” I’ve been using the online thesaurus because Dad keeps it as his home page and the word of the day is always right there. “I need to find a new partner.” There, I said it at last.
Dad heaves an enormous tired sigh, which makes me feel bad but not that bad.
“Meg. You can’t get a new partner and you know it.”
And here’s the whole heart of the matter. I am in a competition (more on that later) where I will, I WILL, win the prize of my dreams. The prize of my happiness and freedom! I know I can do it. I know I WILL do it. The only thing holding me back—the only person holding me back—is my “partner.” She is sabotaging me.
SABOTAGING!
And no one even cares! No one!
They’re all acting like the events of today are acceptable!
I try to compose myself. I say in my most serious voice, “Dad. Grandma and I have come to a crossroads.”
“A crossroads?”
I say nothing because I don’t know exactly what a crossroads is.
Then my dear old dad stands up and says, “Can you really type that fast?”
“I can.”
“How?”
“Typing club.”
“Typing club? You’re really, really fast.”
“Dad, I’m not even the fastest. I’m fourth.”
“Who’s the fastest?”
“Diego Martinez, and I don’t want to talk about him.”
“Well, you’re faster than me.” For the first time since he started talking, I actually agree with him.
“Thank you.”
“Will you go down and at least talk to her?”
“Who?”
“You know who.”
“I do not know to whom you are referring.”
“Grandma Sally.”
“You mean the person stomping all over my hopes and dreams?”
“Meg. Come on.”
And then I start to fume and I billow up in even more anger.
“Fume? Billow up?” Dad says, reading over my shoulder.
That’s growing annoying, so I say in a very loud voice: “Yes. Fume. Billow up, Dad. Billow up in anger like a tsunami! You were at the competition today! You saw what happened! I have every right to billow up.” I pause and then I say, I say it right to his face, I say, “Grandma Sally and I are at war.”
Dad closes his mouth and acts like he’s being normal, but he’s not being normal. His face gets red and he starts to giggle. GIGGLE!
“It’s not funny, Dad!”
“I know. I know, it’s not,” he chokes out.
“It’s really not funny.”
“I know.”
And that’s where we are, people. That’s where we are. My dad, laughing at me. LAUGHING. My grandma, downstairs, making a mockery of my pain.
So let it go on official record: I am not typing this because I want to be a writer like my dad. I’m not typing this because of some school assignment. I’m not even typing this because I need to “cope with my feelings,” like my Aunt Jenny is always saying (because she’s a therapist and one time made me lie on my back and breathe through my nose and think about dogs running through waves at the beach and it really does help—I highly recommend it).
The reason I am typing this is to make a record of this war with my grandma, because if I don’t, no one will believe me.
No one believes kids at all, actually.
And Dad should know.
Because here’s the thing, and I hate to say it: history is repeating itself. It really is, but way, way worse, because mistakes have been forgotten.
And now I am in a war.
And this time, the kid is going to win!
2
How It All Started
It all started on a beautiful, sunny day in May. The last day of school, in fact. I was minding my own business cleaning out my desk, organizing my backpack, and thinking about summer break.
I was both happy and sad the school year was over. I was happy because, well, duh, freedom for three months. I was sad because Lin, my best friend, lives far far far away from me. Actually, everyone lives far away from me, because our house is way outside town, a twenty-minute drive by the lake, on a dirt road where nobody goes unless they’re lost or delivering bills or dentist birthday postcards.
We live there because Dad quit his job to be a full-time writer and Mom thought we should “simplify our lives,” which I know really means writers aren’t as rich as they look. They found this tiny house where the closest neighbors are Mrs. Jensen’s brown horses, which isn’t all bad. I’ve had some deep conversations with those horses. They’re great listeners.
Dad loves the house because he says it has clean lines that Great-Grandpa Jack would have appreciated. Great-Grandpa Jack was an architect. Dad also says it’s perfect for a writer because it’s quiet and private and secluded.
Perfect for him.
Not so perfect for me and my sister, Hattie.
There are zero kids.
Zero.
In Lin’s neighborhood, up on the east side, where most people live and where the library and the park and the big grocery store are, they have block parties, ride bikes to the gas station for frozen lemonades, and play night games. Summertime is one huge party.
Out here where we live, we eat hundreds of peanut butter sandwiches, dig holes in the mud, and play kickball with the horses. Summertime is one huge snore.
Now you might say, Meg, what’s the big deal?
Ride the bus over there.
Get your parents to drive you to your friend’s house.
Walk on your own two legs.
And I’d say, I know. I would but first of all, the city buses do not come near our house. The school bus does, but that stops once school stops.
And second of all, my mom’s work is forty miles away at a software company in a neighboring town and we only have one car. My dad has to walk to his part-time job at town hall. It’s mostly uphill, so it takes him AN HOUR to get there.
Lin lives even farther away than the government offices. This all means if I want to hang out with my friends, I have to walk across the country to get to their houses.
This is the worst, because (a) I’m not that cardiovascularly fit, if you want to know the truth, though I can do the wall sit for forty-eight seconds. Time yourself and see how hard that is. Diego knows, because he could do it for forty-three seconds. And (b) I’d have to take my sister Hattie with me, which makes the walk that much longer and sometimes when she gets tired, she sits in the middle of the road. She really does.
So I was contemplating the boringness of the next few months when Mr. Bailey made the most important announcement of my life.
“I have some handouts for everyone,” he said. “The summer reading program list has been finalized. Basketball camp at the high school. Chess club put on by Mrs. Whatcott.” He held up a flyer for each one.
Same old, same old.
Then he said, “This last one is a contest that’s happening during Strawberry Days.” He looked at it more closely. “Huh. It’s specifically for incoming sixth graders.” He looked at us. “It’s for you guys.”
Strawberry Days? A contest? For sixth graders?
“What kind of contest?” Diego said.
Diego and I have a long history with contests. I leaned forward so I could make sure I didn’t miss anything.
“Read the flyer yourself,” Mr. Bailey said. “We have a lot to get through today.”
My heart raced.
Strawberry Days is the best time of the year, hands down.
Our town puts on the festival every summer to honor our history of being one of the biggest strawberry growers in the United States. We don’t have many strawberry fields anymore, but we still celebrate. We have a huge strawberry pancake breakfast and a carnival with rides and performances and a farmer’s market and fireworks. There’s always strawberry contests, and once there was a guy who got shot out of a cannon into a pool of strawberry jam. Everyone lives for Strawberry Days.
The War with Grandma Page 1
